“There’s one thing no one prepared me for. Not the antenatal classes, the friends or family, even those who were already parents. ”

Performers Marcus Fernando (Dad)

Simon Garrington (Dad)

Developed by Tina and Kristina (not Dads)

Songs and lyrics Rich Stokes (Dad)

Dramaturgical support Daniel Bye (Dad)

Video Paul Stringer (Dad)

Technical wizz Jon Bates (not Dad)

Supported by Arts Council England, mac Birmingham, and In Good Company.

Present day, UK. Father walking down the street pushing a pram. He runs into a neighbour who remarks: “Giving Mum a day off?”

After investigating motherhood in our first show “Wonderwoman”, we wanted men to talk to us about fatherhood. This process was not easy, and we nearly gave up. However, it would have been very difficult to make a show about fatherhood without consulting fathers. This is why we hired 2 fathers-actors to help us make the show.

In the last 100 years father’s role has undergone quite a change, but why do we still struggle in trusting a man as a primary carer and why the law still favours the mother? Can we find some explanations in the natural world? In some animal species, the female has to protect the young from the father. Sometimes even, the female eats her mate who becomes a food source for her pregnancy. Perhaps there’s a bit of that buried in humans?

DadMan: The Bath-time Warrior deals with the surprise, shock and change brought on by the expectations of fatherhood. It also addresses issues of control and supervision from a fresh point of view. So, we decided to challenge our own and society’s assumptions, generalisations and expectations of gender roles, and ask questions we are often afraid to ask out loud.

Our objective is to unravel the bath-time in a surprising, unpredictable and completely new light.

This show is made by two (opinionated) Croatian mothers who also run the show from off-stage and sometimes communicate in Croatian. This creates various dynamics with the performers, two British fathers actors/musicians/stage-combat professionals who react strongly to sweeping statements but are happy to turn them into a song and battle.